


Elopement Never Goes Out Of Fashion

by SearchingforSerendipity



Category: Paris Burning (thecitysmith)
Genre: F/F, Period-Typical Homophobia, The Tower of London, Victorian Attitudes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 07:21:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7565239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SearchingforSerendipity/pseuds/SearchingforSerendipity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the lock started turning London didn't blink. If those little fuckers decided to try decapitating she was going to laugh in their faces. At least Mary of Scots had had more style than Victoria.</p><p>Then the rusty eye grate opened and she recognized those eyes.</p><p>"Oh, it's you. Did you bring pie? I'm starving."</p><p> </p><p>In which London is not a beautiful maiden but she <em>is<em></em></em> stuck in a tower, and Lisbon is bad at feelings but good at big gestures. Mostly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elopement Never Goes Out Of Fashion

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Paris Burning: Fun Facts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7553998) by [thecitysmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecitysmith/pseuds/thecitysmith). 



A little known fact between humans was that Lisbon had a wonderful voice.

The cities knew. Every time the cities had a big get together Marseille would eventually challenge her for singing contests, Lisbon would demure and making them wait, until finally conceding.

As a colony, she had enjoyed singing by the river and further out to the sea, walking through the reeds and slick pebbles. She would throw bread to the seagulls and ravens, pick up shells and throw away the faulty ones. For many years she sang proudly about love and life and living, without understanding a word. The other cities had teased her for it, but they enjoyed her singing too much to be cruel. Their words wouldn't have touched her anyway.

(That is a lie. Lisbon felt keenly. She simply didn't allow others to know that.

She was so good at that that she had convinced herself she was the height of her hills, the coolness of her river. And then she sang, and remembered the treasure she had contained and left to dust).

Her tunes were imperfect, pitch-wise. She had a voice like her Tejo, like the wind in her hills, deep, roughly-ewn. She sang like no one had sang before, like she had invented music and voices and feelings. She sang like she meant every word.

Madrid had loved her, composed songs for her. They had sang together down the shores of the Tejo, walking to each other without noticing the flowers they trampled on the path. They had been young then, and thought they knew what the songs spoke off.

Nowadays she sang very little. Only in dark tabernas, where the air smelled of sweat and cheap wine and the people laughed loud enough to drown the guitars. Her voice was deeper now, old, more sound than words, feelings leashed like the tide.

But when Lisbon sang the city and its people and its wind went very quiet.

 

London's words found her in one of those places. Her penmanship was enviable, even drawn by a bloody finger to the wooden wall. Suddenly the raucous every-day feasting became white noise. Lisbon stumbled, griped her shawl. The door was closed behind her before the song was finished. 

 

  
Alfred poked Benedict.

"Stop that nonsense." London ordered. Neither of them turned away, too busy opening their beaks to one another. Their cawing and that of the other ravens filled the cell, with many of them flying from perch to perch and littering the ground with black feathers.

London sighed and threw the last of the crumbs. At once Benedict took flight, followed by Alfred, Owan, Gwen and Willem, then Arcturus and Patricia.

It was the third day of her arrest and she had resorted to naming the ravens. That was probably a bad sign.

When the lock started turning she didn't blink. Crossing her ankles, fluffed her skirts and lifting her head so she could see the tip of her nose. If those little fuckers decided to try decapitating she was going to laugh in their faces. At least Mary of Scots had had more style than Victoria.

Then the rusty eye grate opened and she recognized those eyes.

"Oh, it's you. Did you bring pie? I'm starving."

Typically, Lisbom ignored her. She had a selective humor to go with her selective hearing. "I hope you are happy." Came the muffled grumbling. "I haven't had cause to break in since 1703." 

Lisbon's fingers do not fumble as much as slide the key to its place. It clicked open with the most satisfying sound. Sweet freedom, London thinks wryly. And about time. The ravens were very sweet in heir devotion, following her to her exile, but they had soiled themselves in her cell enough times already. Eventually one of them was bound to do some unpleasant business on her.

The grate slid open, thumping against the wall. Lisbon barely waited for her to pass through the doorstep to hug her. She smelled so wonderfully like herself, brine and crumbling mortar and traded spices, that London had to press their lips together. For a moment she could hear her heartbeat, carts on cobblestones prayers ships mooring church bells tolling merchants haggling. Then Lisbon pushed her away by the shoulders and gave her a critical glance.

  
"You smell of raven dropping." Lisbon said, leaning forward to pluck a black feather from London's hair. Her bonnet had been tossed away along with her stupid corset, the best thing at could be aid of this whole debacle. God she hated the things.

No more pandering. She thought. No more dressing up to please the pretentious bastards.

"The downside of emprisonment." She answered drily. They started strolling, as calmly as if the Tower were Hyde Park. Lisbon would hate it, far too artificial for her tastes. "That and the sad excuse for soup they serve here."

There was a rustling from he cell, and suddenly the corridor was filled with loud cawing. London growled when a raven got stuck in her hair, and started running. She knew the Tower better than any mortal, had chosen the spot herself. Their steps rang out in the slick stone, boots sliding.

Lisbon followed. Further behind they heard the sounds of rousing guards, the glimpse of a lamp before turning a corner.

London looked around and skidded to a stop before a high window.

Technically speaking she didn't have the authority to break it. It galled her, filled her with a cold unwavering fury, but it was the truth. She tired to touch the glass and pulled away her hand, burned and spasming with strange heat. London was about to try for another door when a shape of black fluttered on the other side, a sharp racking tapping the glass.

"Oh, this is ridiculous." Lisbon muttered, but the grates were old and the glass kept splintering and cracking under Owan's beak. Alfred and the other Ravens came to help. Lisbon went to work, lodging the brick against the corner of the glass pane, then breaking it with the handle.

A guard came their away. He shouted to his colleagues, bayonet rising. Lisbon cursed when the first shot rang out. "I am going to be so displeased if I get shot."

London didn't turn behind, too busy testing her grip. With a press of her knees she jumped, falling on top of a three story building with considerable sliding down files. There was the sound of cursing in Latin before another thump came.

There were more guards now, looking out of the window, coming out to the streets. Lisbon was gripping white knuckles to a ledge, maneuvering her considerable weight to something resembling balance. London perched on a tile, high enough to look out over the black press of buildings down to the river. Something brittle hurt inside her. The certainty she wouldn't be returning soon, the way a city felt before leaving for war.

She was going to miss her children.

Then she jumped again and with a laugh returned to the chase, humming under her breath.

 

 

"You gave me a terrible fright." Lisbon said, confession and complaint at once. The ship slid smoothly through the waves, black wood on black water. A wind stirred the deck, bolstering the waves. "Honestly, Raven to Tower isn't a very clear message."

"It is for you, and you know it." She retorted. Ravens, after all, were part of Lisbon's sigil.

The clouds moved from the moon, silver in the waves, turning the taunt ropes to thin bones. Behind the mask Lisbon's face darkened, placing a hand gently on her cheek. "You're hurt."

London recognized that look. Lisbon had the most annoying protective streak. It was much less endearing than it sounded.

"Just a flesh wound. The guards got a little over eager." She gave Lisbon a once over of her own and stared. Her clothing had blended so well with the dark that it was only now that she saw what she was wearing.

"Really, darling." London sighed. "A black cape? A mask? Taking after Venice, are we?"

"I happen to like Venice." Lisbon argued, because for some reason Venice did seem to get along with the Iberian Cities as a whole. "Even if his taste is rather garish. And I could hardly go around breaking in jails with my face bare."

That was true. Lisbon's face had been ravaged by time, her people's illnesses and hungers, the one summer heats, but all the more so by the earthquake last century.

London remembered only too well the too long days of travel before finally arriving to find her limping through the ruins, stumbling on the skeleton of a church. Burns seeping pus (it had been a religious holiday, every house empty, every church smelling of incense and flickering candles. it had been a cold October morning and so many had been warming themselves at home), half her bones in casts (the streets had broken in half and crumbled. Lisbon had kept her head then, lead the people had run to the riverbank. come come the fire won't spread so far), lungs still tired from expelling water

(the river had betrayed them. it had been the greatest tsunami any European city could remember).

London had gone as soon as she knew. It was just like Lisbon to make a romantic escape about qui pro quo.

London wasn't bothered. She felt utterly without weakness, tiredness put behind her with every new mile of foam behind them. The wind in her face was exciting. 

She had needed this escape, more than she had realized.

then she had a thought that left her wrists burning.

"How did you ever get in?" She demanded. "The earth there was made to emprision enem cities."

Lisbon turned away. Ashamed or cautious, she couldn't tell. 

"Rome was a fine teacher." She clenched her jaw, eyes a glimmer between black cloth. "I was an obedient student."

And no more would be said on the subject, London could tell. Lisbon was always touchy when it came to Rome. For someone who always had something to say about anyone and everything, determined silence was a vulnerable absence.

London had tried to pry on better circumstances, so she let it go. For now. It was _her_ Tower, after all. 

"Did you have to kill anyone to get in?" She asked instead without expecting a positive answer. Lisbon was usually more considerate than that.

"They're not that good at their jobs. No one saw me." Lisbon's look was nearly offended. It was true, she could be terribly stealthy when she wanted. Nobody saw Lisbon unless she wanted them to see her.

"What was this even about?"

"You don't know?" She asked, genuinely surprised. Lisbon only glared, adjusting the cloack around her face.

"I told you, your message was terribly vague."

London found this stupidly touching, and snuffled to cover it up. "What if I deserved to be thrown to the gallows? What if I committed a true crime? Humans live under the funny notion that Cities aren't exempt from the Law, you know."

London knew. She had been one of the Tower's architects, the mind behind the project of a place impossible to escape, even for a City. It had been built with enemies in mind, but even then she had heard the whispers of dissent in human minds. She had chosen to pay the, no heed, at the time.

A fine irony if ever there was one.

"Then I hope it wasn't anything too serious. My Ambassador is a petty fellow, seems to be under the impression that human diplomacy is the same as city affairs."

London's smile turned to a frown. "Victoria, the little rat, decided to pass a law..."

She explained, voice even but vehement, about the idiotic new regulations, like love and sex were a crime, a containable force of evil to be suppressed. She trembles as she spoke of the Queen's certainty that women could not love other women, than men's love for men was evil and blasphemous.

(She raged and ranted and remembered Matilda, the humor no historian wrote about, Elizabeth's long stubborn neck. Maura's laughed when she snorted, so unembarrassed and blithe, her baker's calluses. The way Emilia had turned her head to the sun, eyelashes fluttering.

She thought of Lisbon, stiff and sharp and sarcastic, who sailed half a sea to save her from her own people without knowing why, just that the who was her.

"I loved them!" She had screamed in first of the whole shocked court. "Your ancestors, women of strength and might and wisdom, and many others history doesn't remember I loved them, I will always love them." She'd stared down Victoria, the sneers in the courtier's faces. "Don't you dare say it was not love. Don't you dare make it something to be ashemed for, Your Majesty, or I swear you will have more to worry than legislating senseless laws.

I swear on the streets and dirt and blood of my city.")

A hand griped hers, long after she fell silent.

 

She griped back, tight.)

 

  
In 1755 Lisbon had thought she was going to die. Lisbon, who had once been a child-colony with scarred wrists, who had once said it isn't what you survive, it's what you choose to survive, had honestly thought she was going to die. She had been in too much pain to even wonder if she was being melodramatic.

(In hindsight she hadn't been exaggerated. It had in fact been one of the deadliest earthquakes in history, changed whole schools of thought and created a new field of study.)

The ground opened fifteen feet deep. The fires lasted five days.

Paris was gone. London had seen him stumbling firm his own tomb, not so long ago. Paris lived, but he was gone. Lisbon lived, here, now. Her hair had turned gray. She had scarred, accumulated aches.

("I'm old." She'd told London. She had shushed her, told her not to hurt herself talking, but there were things that needed to be said and Lisbon was very insistent in saying things as they were. "I am dying."

"No you aren't." London had said. Her hand had been a distant pressure over her bandages. "All my loves have died. You aren't allowed to die, you hear me Lisboa? Don't you are die on me."

"I'm old," she'd repeated, voice broken beyound recognition. 

"I don't care. You're alive. can survive this. We both know you can. It's a choice, isn't that what you always say?Choose _life_. ")

 

 

This is all to say, it was rather insulting that London thought she wouldn't go after her. (also, she'd been waiting to use that mask for ages.)

 

 

A very well known fact among humans was that London had a terrible singing voice.

To speak it was very good. Clear, authoritative, with an accent that she was quite proud off, managing to incorporate every part of her city and the ones that had been before. It was a voice people heard and obeyed before pausing to realize it.

But, it was generally agreed, she sang like a drowning cat being pelted during a rockslide.

That was Amsterdam's description. She invaded him for that. Just a little invasion.

It didn't stop her from singing. Rarely, when she was in a good mood. She refused to forget the old songs, what we're now folklore rhymes or lullabies. She sang to her lovers, gave them all a song of her own, took their songs after they were gone. She knew how music went, the ridges and rises and staccatos. My Bonnie lies under the waves was supposed to be one of her creations. Scholars argued over which particular tragedy had inspired it, never thinking that it might come from all of them, that it might not have been a tragedy at all.

And even if she preferred instruments, the pianoforte and the flute, sometimes late at night, you could her the cobblestones humming, just a little out of tune. You can tell the city's mood by its songs.

One day there was no song.

It was unnoticed at first. The fog still clung to the houses, the factories still spewed fumes. People woke up and buttered toast hurriedly before leaving for their jobs. The streets were filled with people, the sky clouded a dim shapeless gray. In its bare bones, everything was as it had been the previous morning and remarkably similar to the ones that had come before.

It was simply without rhythm.

The movements were without symphonies. The river slogged slow, the fishes swam away. When great machines pumped it was a pulsation a little uneven, every product somehow faulty. The garden buds remained hidden. The sun had to fight to reach the city and when it did its light never seemed to touch the ground.

In the empty cell mildew grew without witnesses. It was 1885, the Criminal Law Amendment Act was in the front page of every newspaper and the ravens had fled the Tower.

 

 

 


End file.
